Prayer Request

Friends,
Please pray for Jon Hutchison, Jr. He is in his early 20's and has had a reoccurring brain tumor for the past two long years. After experiencing more symptoms this week, he had an emergency MRI that showed multiple tumors in his brain and lower spine, including one on his brain stem. He has been declared terminal. His older sister Melody is a great friend of Nick and mine from ORU days. Please pray for miraculous healing, as well as peace and comfort for him and his family.

Final thoughts for now

Thanks so much to all of you who have commented and/or emailed about the post on the shootings.

I feel like the first step to healing from something like this, is allow yourself to ask the questions. I don't believe that asking the questions expresses any doubt in God or in His ability whatsoever, but more looks forward to the answers He will provide.

In any case, like Jesica said, when you turn to God in trial, your faith only gets stronger. "Where else would we go? He has the words of eternal life."

Also, as strange as it seems, the terror of this event seems much less than it might have been had we not already suffered as a church. Like the questions are right around the corner instead of months away, if that makes sense. We've been tested already and proven faithful. We know there will be a day for a new "normal," one that's even better in some ways than the old normal.

It may be a while before I can again walk down the halls at New Life without a thought of fear, but I will not allow it to motivate my decisions or take up residence in my heart. Those are things and places for God alone.

Please continue to pray for New Life and YWAM and the families affected by the shootings.

So...

I'm not sure what to say. My desire to blog has been completely gone these past couple of days. The story that has unfolded reminds me of a made-for-tv horror plot with a surprise "God" ending.

There was a young man who had been raised by Christian parents and homeschooled. He had always been a little different..couldn't quite fit in. At 19, he enrolled in a YWAM discipleship training school. He was asked to leave before he completed the 10 month program for, among other things, playing Marilyn Manson songs on talent night. He was unable to constructively express his embarrassment and hurt over that, and in the next 5 years he began hating Christians. He started reading things like the manifesto written by the Columbine killers. Their words echoed in his head to the point that he could recite them. He began entertaining thoughts of killing some of these Christians, for who he could never seem to be good enough. He was able to buy guns because he had no prior record. He knew, deep down, that his parents loved him and he had no desire to hurt them personally. Instead, he returned to YWAM. He shot a few people there and went home. Then he went online to talk about how much he hated Christians, meanwhile hatching a plan to create abject terror at a church he visited once with his parents - New Life. He hated them especially for what happened to their pastor a year ago. Who did they think they were?

He arrived at New Life right after the late service, when the campus was full of people. He dropped smoke bombs at the main exits so everyone would be afraid to go through them, and then went in the far back door to corner people in the almost-full building. After shooting five more people with an automatic rifle, he was taken down with a single handgun by a female undercover security guard who had been fired from a police force 10 years ago for lying under investigation. She had just finished three days of fasting and praying for guidance and was in constant communication with God during the event. He guided her. It could have been a complete massacre.

I have pieced this story together from the many, many reports I have heard and read over the past few days. Some of it was from reading between the lines, and is not necessarily fact. This version of the story keeps playing over and over in my head. There are so many questions...

-God's power and protection is so evident in the whole event. Why did He not keep the two girls from dying? He obviously could have.
-Matthew Murray's parents did everything right - everything they knew to do. What went wrong? Why is there no formula to raise Godly children?
-Could there be a demonic element to this kind of behavior?
-In spite of SO many reaching out to Murray, he refused and rejected all help. Why? What caused his heart to be so hard? How could one man's hatred run so deep?
-What plan does God have for the hero, Jeanne Assam? I'd say somewhere in here is the direction she was praying for. You can't miss it!
-How can we as Christians, help hearts to be mended when they've been broken by us? SO much is expected from Christians, and we're just people. We do stupid, insensitive stuff in spite of how much we don't want to.
-How do Jesus' predictions of persecution of Christians interpret these events? By definition, those girls were martyrs - killed for their beliefs.
-Where is the line between not allowing ourselves to be controlled by fear, and being wise about the world we live in? Starting house churches to avoid public churches would probably be giving in to fear, but I can't say it hasn't crossed my mind and been suggested by other people.
-How long is it okay to mourn, and when is it time to move on? I do not want to wallow in grief, neither do I want to short-circuit the grieving process or sound stupidly over-spiritual.

and maybe most of all...

-What in the world does God have in store for New Life? Have we been under some sort of satanic attack? If so, why? What is satan so afraid of? We should have been down, off the radar a year ago. How will God use this for good, because He promises He will?

No wonder I can't sleep tonight. I suppose many of those questions will be answered, but only with time.

In spite of the tone of this blog, I'm actually doing okay. I'm sad, for sure. But I'm also immensely grateful to God and to Jeanne Assam, for seeking God and therefore being where she was supposed to be. Our church is having to suffer for a man's sin yet again, but one woman's righteousness protected us from the full impact.

Here's my plea: seek God with your whole heart. He promises you'll find Him when you do that. We need Him to heal our land. HIS people have to seek Him, and then He promises He will heal. Righteousness acts as a shield. We may never know what our faithfulness to God guards against, both in our lives and in the lives of others we don't even know. Never give up.

Update

The names of the victims were released this morning. We didn't know the two teenage girls who died, or their Dad who is still in the hospital. We did know, (or at least know OF) the two who were injured. They're okay, it appears. It's tough, because our church is right off the interstate, and so high profile. It is going to take some time to feel safe again...anywhere. I'm so thankful that our church had a plan in place for something like this. I am also thankful for what seems like thousands of people who stayed home for no particular reason. The services were very empty, in spite of the fact that we had a famous guest speaker this week. I think God directed people to stay home. One family of my piano students is very close to Judy Purcell, who was shot in the shoulder. I talked to them this morning, and they had been at the hospital all night, praying for the girl who died there late last night.

Nick sent me this:
"Pastor Brady said the church is closed today for repairs. It sounds like there will be an extra service later this week. He is calling the security guard a hero. He said hundreds would have likely been killed if she hadn't acted as quickly as she did. He said she immediately ran towards the scene and confronted the gunman right after he entered the building. He said she attended the first service and then was stationed in the foyer for the second service. Pastor Brady said she normally is assigned to protect him. He said she has a law enforcement background. "

Sad days, as you can tell. I know God will work through this, especially after what we've been through, but it's still awfully hard to suffer for the sin of a man we don't even know - who had no connection whatsoever to our church.

A couple of personal prayer requests:
-Pray against the fear. Think of how we would feel leaving our kids in the nursery...like ever again.
-Pray for me as I lead my small group for young moms on Thursday. What do you say?
-Pray for protection and healing for the church as a whole.

Thanks, guys.

New Life

We and my parents and siblings are safe. None of us actually went to
church today - my mom and I both, completely separately, didn't want
to go to church today, very unusual for us. We normally would have
been in the parking lot right at the time of the shooting. Thank God.
We have heard one woman, Judy Purcell, who helps run the High Country
Homeschool program there was hit, no word yet on her status. Please pray
for her and her husband and her 4 children. One daughter is a friend
of my sister's.

Thank you for your prayers. They're saying everyone is alive so far.
Praise God. The fear is tough though. Keep praying!

Random Comments

1. I have nothing terribly profound to say today. Just warning you.
2. My computer isn't working well at all. I type a complete sentence, and then wait as it adds one-letter-at-a-time. It is incredibly frustrating.
3. I have decided to take Hannah's removing her diaper nonstop as a cue.Time to potty train, for real. She ran around the house all morning without one, and didn't go. Then, as soon as I put it back on, she went. She has yet to actually go on the potty. This process inspires a couple thoughts - #1, why is it so hard to communicate this process? Surely she doesn't enjoy going in her bed after removing her diaper. #2 - It must have been easier when people lived in tents and kids could just let loose until they got it figured out. I bet they trained a lot earlier.
4. Audrey went to sleep a baby and woke up a toddler in the past few days. She wants DOWN so she can PLAY! Now! She has a very specific agenda that you better not cross if you value your life (or your eardrums, mostly).
5. Date night tonight, the first one in about 6 weeks because of everybody being sick. Yay! Now, if we could just decide what to do...
6. It is supposed to be 90 for the next several days. Nobody here has air conditioning at home. We're going to cook.
7. The daycare my nieces were in just got shut down for neglect. A hearing will be happening in the next few days. It sounds bad. My nieces seem to be fine, thank God. This whole thing frightens me to the point that I could puke. Please pray about the situation if you think of it.
8. Yay for the weekend. We're heading to Denver for fun tomorrow.
9. I had company pretty much all day Thursday. It was so fun. And so tiring. Thus the reason for no posting the past couple days.
10. I've been reading an incredibly intriguing book called Holding Time. Although I wouldn't parent with this philosophy alone, I believe it is a tool that would help just about every parent. Especially with that one kid every parent has who is...a challenge?
11. This week I rather successfully became a morning person. We were up by 8 most days. This is turning over a new leaf for us. And mornings were so much more fun and easier. I actually made time for quiet times and had something constructive to think about throughout the day. I like it. I think I'll keep it.
12. Goodnight.

I am a hermit

...Or at least I have felt like one these past two weeks. It seems that when you decide to handle sickness the natural way, everything takes a little longer than most people are used to. 5 days of fever for each kid, a nasty cough, runny noses, coughed up...bodily fluids, pink eye gunk, and long nights with one hour of sleep at a time. This has been my last two weeks. I'm so sick of bodily fluids I could puke. Plus, I'm tired, cranky, and lonely.

But, they are getting better. We're on day 3 with Audrey, which, if hers follows the pattern of Nick and Hannah, means tomorrow will be better. And it is June now, so hopefully this is the last of the sickness for a few month. Hopefully.

So, if you've been trying to reach me and I haven't called back, I'm holding whimpering babies and trying to keep up with laundry full of pink eye germs - not ignoring you. So far I have escaped the bug - pray that I will!

Please Pray...

My...second cousin once removed? I think that's what she is...her daughter is my third cousin. Anyway, Debbie went in to have a tumor removed from her pancreas. They thought it wasn't going to be a big deal, and it turns out that it was. They think it was cancer, but they won't know for sure until it comes back from the lab in 7-10 days. In the meantime, she's in ICU and is not stable enough to be transferred. She is on a feeding tube because she can't even do liquids orally for a few more days.

Debbie's daughter is Elizabeth, and she and I grew up together - we were the only two girls in our grade at our small church in Southern California. Debbie and her husband Dave have three grown children, one grandchild and a grandchild on the way. She needs to pull out of this and stick around for a while longer! God still does miracles...let's ask for one!

Prayer Request

My friend Kim and her family are facing a major challenge. Please be praying for them!